PROMOTION

Introduction
Promotion refers to upward movement of an employee from current job to another that is
higher in pay, responsibility and/or organizational level. Promotion brings enhanced
status, better pay, increased responsibilities and better working condition to the promotee.
Promotion is slightly different from up gradation which means elevating the place of the
job in the organizational hierarchy (a better title is given now) or including the job in
higher grade (minor enhancement in pay in tune with the limits imposed within a
particular grade).

There is no increase in pay, authority or status. Hence, it cannot act as a

motivational tool. Promotion, on the other hand, has in-built motivational value, as it
elevates the status and power of an employee within an organization.

Purpose of Promotion
i. To motivate employees to higher productivity.

ii. To attract and retain the services of qualified and competent people.

iii. To recognize and reward the efficiency of an employee.

iv. To increase the effectiveness of the employee and of the organization.

v. To fill up higher vacancies from within the organisation.

vi. To build loyalty, morale and a sense of belongingness in the employee.

vii. To impress upon others that opportunities are available to them also in the
organisation, if they perform well.
Bases of Promotion

Organizations adopt different bases of promotion depending upon their nature, size,
management, etc. Generally, they may combine two or more bases of promotion. The
well-established bases of promotion are seniority and merit.

Merit-based promotion: Merit based promotions occur when an employee is

promoted because of superior performance in the current job. Merit here denotes an
individual’s knowledge, skills, abilities and efficiency as measured from his educational
qualifications, experience, training and past employment record. The advantages of this
system are fairly obvious:

 It motivates employees to work hard, improve their knowledge, acquire new skills
and contribute to organizational efficiency.
 It helps the employer to focus attention on talented people, recognize and reward
their meritorious contributions in an appropriate way.
 It also inspires other employees to improve their standards of performance through
active participation in all developmental initiatives undertaken by the employer
(training, executive development, etc.)

Seniority-based promotions: Seniority refers to the relative length of service in the

same organization. Promoting an employee who has the longest length of service is often
widely welcomed by unions because it is fairly objective. It is easy to measure the length
of service and judge the seniority. There is no scope for favoritism, discrimination and
subjective judgment. Everyone is sure of getting the same, one day.

In spite of these merits, this system also suffers from certain limitations. They are:

 The assumption that the employees learn more with length of service is not valid
as employees may learn upto a certain stage, and learning capabilities may
diminish beyond a certain age.
 It demotivates the young and more competent employees and results in greater
employee turnover.
  It kills the zeal and interest to develop, as everybody will be promoted without
showing any all round growth or promise.
 Judging the seniority, though it seems to be easy in a theoretical sense, is highly
difficult in practice as the problems like job seniority, company seniority,
zonal/regional seniority, service in different organizations, experience as
apprentice trainee, trainee, researcher, length of service not only by days but by
hours and minutes will crop up.

TYPES OF PROMOTION

Horizontal promotion

TYPES OF
PROMOTION

Vertical promotion Dry promotion

(i) Horizontal promotion

Promotion involves an increase in responsibilities and pay, and a change in

designation. But the employee concerned does not transgress the job classification.

Eg: a lower division clerk is promoted as an upper division clerk. This type of
promotion is referred to an “upgrading” the position of an employee.
(ii) Vertical promotion

A promotion is vertical when a canteen employee is promoted to an unskilled job.

The concerned employee naturally transgresses the job classification.

(iii) Dry promotion

Dry promotion refers to increase in responsibilities and status only.

Promotion Policy

Seniority and merit, thus, suffer from certain limitations. To be fair, therefore, a firm-
should institute a promotion policy that gives due weight age to both seniority and merit.
To strike a proper balance between the two, a firm could observe the following points:

 Establish a fair and equitable basis for promotion i.e., merit or seniority or both.
 A promotion policy established thus should provide equal opportunities for
promotion in all categories of jobs, departments and regions of an organization.
 It should ensure an open policy in the sense that every eligible employee is
considered for promotion rather than a closed system which considers only a
particular class of employees.
 The norms for judging merit, length of service, potentiality, etc., must be
established beforehand
 The mode of acquiring new skills, knowledge, etc., should be specified to all
employees so that they can prepare themselves for career advancement.
 Appropriate authority should be entrusted with the responsibility of talking a final
decision on promotion.
 Detailed records of service, performance, etc., should be maintained for all
employees, to avoid charges of favoritism, nepotism etc.
 It should be consistent in the sense that it is applied uniformly to all employees,
inspective of their background.
 Promotion policy should contain alternatives to promotion when deserving
candidates are not promoted due to lack of vacancies at higher level. These
alternatives include up gradation, redesignation, sanctioning of higher pay or
increments or allowances assigning new and varied responsibilities to the
employee by enriching the job or enlarging the job.
 A provision for appeal against (alleged) arbitrary actions of management and its
review should be there.
 Promotion policy, once it is formulated, should be communicated to all
employees, particularly to the trade union leaders. It should be reviewed
periodically, based on experiences and findings of the attitude and morale surveys.
 Transfer

Introduction
A transfer is a change in job assignment. It may involve a promotion or demotion or no
change at all in status and responsibility. A transfer has to be viewed as a change in
assignment in which an employee moves from one job to another in the same level of
hierarchy, requiring similar skills, involving approximately same level of responsibility,
same status and same level of pay. A transfer does not imply any ascending (promotion)
or descending (demotion) change in status or responsibility.

Purposes of Transfer

Organization resort to transfers with a view to serve the following purposes:

a. To meet the organizational requirements: organizations may have to transfer

employees due to changes in technology, changes in volume of production,
production schedule, product line, quality of products, changes in the job pattern
caused by change in organizational structure, fluctuations in the market conditions
like demands fluctuations, introduction of new lines and/or dropping of existing
lines. All these changes demand the shift in job assignments with a view to place
the right man on right job.

b. To satisfy the employee needs: Employees mat need transfers in order to satisfy
their desire to work under a friendly superior, in a department/region where
opportunities for advancement are bright, in or near their native place or place of
interest, doing a job where the work itself is challenging, etc.

c. To utilize employees better: An employee may be transferred because

management feels that his skills, experience and job knowledge could be put to
better use elsewhere.
 d. To make the employee more versatile: Employees may be rolled over different
jobs to expand their capabilities. Job rotation may prepare the employee for more
challenging assignments in future.

e. To adjust the workforce: Workforce may be transferred from a plant where there
is less work to a plant where there is more work.

f. To provide relief: Transfers may be made to give relief to employees who are
overburdened or doing hazardous work for long periods.

g. To reduce conflicts: Where employees find it difficult to get along with

colleagues in a particular section, department or location – they could be shifted to
another place to reduce conflicts.

h. To punish employees: Transfers may be affected as disciplinary measures – to

shift employees indulging in undesirable activities to remote, far-flung areas.

Types of Transfers

Transfers can be classified thus:

a. Production transfers: Transfers caused due to changes in production.

b. Replacement transfers: Transfers caused due to replacement of an employee

working on the same job for a long time.

c. Rotation transfers: Transfers initiated to increase the versatility of employees.

d. Shift transfers: Transfers of an employee from one shift to another.

e. Remedial transfers: Transfers initiated to correct the wrong placements.

f. Penal transfers: Transfers initiated as a punishment for in disciplinary action of

 employees.

Benefits and Problems Associated with Transfers

A summary of benefits and problems associated with transfers is given below:

Benefits Problems
 Improve employee skills  Inconvenient to employees who
 Reduce monotony, boredom otherwise do not want to move
 Remedy faulty placement decisions  Employees may or may not fit in the
 Prepare the employee for new location/department
challenging assignments in future  Shifting of experienced hands may
 Stabilize changing work affect productivity
requirements in different  Discriminatory transfers may affect
departments/locations employee morale.
 Improve employee satisfaction and
morale
 Improve employer-employee
relations

Transfers have to be carried out in a systematic way, with a view to avoid allegations of
discrimination and favoritism. Some of the above cited problems associated with
transfers could be avoided, if organizations formulate a definite transfer policy, for use at
different points of time.

Transfer Policy

Organizations should clearly specify their policy regarding transfers. Otherwise,

superiors may transfer their subordinates arbitrarily if they do not like them. It causes
frustration among employees. Similarly, subordinates may also request for transfers even
for the petty issues. Hence, an organization should formulate a systematic transfer policy.
A systematic transfer policy should the following items:
 1. Specification of circumstances under which an employee will be transferred in the
case of any company initiated transfer.
2. Name of the superior who is authorized and responsible to initiate a transfer.
3. Jobs from and to which transfers will be made, based on the job specification,
description and classification, etc.
4. The region or unit of the organization within which transfers will be administered.
5. Reasons which will be considered for personal transfers, their order of priority,
etc.
6. Reasons for natural transfer of employees.
7. Norms to decide priority when two or more employees request for transfers like
priority of reason, seniority.
8. Specification of basis of transfer, like job analysis, merit, length of service.
9. Specification of pay, allowances, benefits, etc., that are to be allowed to the
employee in the new job,
10. Other facilities to be extended to the transferee like special level during the period
of transfer, special allowance for packaging luggage, transportation, etc.

Generally, line managers administer the transfers and HR managers assist the line
managers in this respect.

SUBMITTED BY:

Ishita Mehrotra
Shefali Singhal
PGDM-II sem